Soaring higher than ever, women legal eagles hold one in five top jobs in UK law firms

Pioneer: Cherie Blair set up her own chambers to beat sexism at the Bar

The number of top female legal eagles has reached record levels, a new survey shows.

Male lawyers still outnumber their female counterparts women in Britain's major law firms but women are increasingly being chosen for leading roles, the figures show.

The Lawyer magazine says 19.6 per cent of partners in the top 100 firms are now women - a slight increase on the previous two years, when the figure was around 19 per cent.

In addition, the total number of female equity partners has risen by nearly 4.5 per cent - despite a fall in the overall number of equity partners in the top 100.

The City's biggest firms have fallen behind smaller firms in improving the ratio of women to men. But even at the ten largest law firms, 15.9 per cent of partners are now women - up from 9.6 per cent in 1992.

The survey comes a week after a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission showed the number of women winning top positions in areas such as politics, the media and law had fallen for the first time in five years.

Pensions specialist Sacker & Partners scores highest on the equality scale in the latest survey, with women accounting for 47.8 per cent of the partnership.

This compares with 5.9 per cent at the worst performer, Anglo-Scottish private equity boutique Dickson Minto.

Second from bottom is law firm Burgess, where women account for just 10 per cent of the partnership.

But its chairman, Philip Rodney, said they had now added four women partners.

He said: 'Undoubtedly this is something we have to take account of for the future. We are moving in the right direction.'

Nicky Paradise, managing partner with legal company Nabarro, is one of the few women to lead a top 100 firm.

She said: 'As we all get better at flexible working arrangements and not expecting everybody to follow the same career path, the numbers will naturally improve.'

Leading women lawyers say they have had to get used to being in a minority of one.

Trowers & Hamlins head of corporate law Jennie Gubbins said : 'I go to lots of meetings at lots of firms and I'm completely inured to being the only woman in the room.'

Britain's most famous female lawyer, Cherie Booth QC - otherwise Cherie Blair - set up her own legal chambers, Matrix, partly to overcome the institutional sex discrimination she says she encountered as a working mother at the Bar.

But the latest research suggests a marked change since earlier surveys by The Lawyer.

In 1992, 9.6 per cent of partners in the UK's 10 largest firms were women, but that figure has risen by over 50 per cent to 15.9 per cent this year.

Firms with the highest proportion of women partners

Sacker & Partners (47.8%)

Forsters (44.8%)

Pannone (41.8%)

Berrymans Lace Mawer (35.9%)

Russell-Cooke (34.1%)

Firms with the lowest proportion

Dickson Minto (5.9%)

Burness (10%)

Ince & Co (11%)

Howes Percival (11.4%)

Bircham Dyson Bell (11.8%)

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Soaring higher than ever, women legal eagles hold one in five top jobs in UK law firms